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Owner description: Visitors to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers will enjoy seeing the winter residences of famous inventors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. There are historical buildings, award-winning gardens, the Edison Botanic Research Lab and the Inventors Museum. The museum has hundreds of inventions, artifacts and special exhibits. Edison Ford offers many tour options, including special "Inside the Homes" and "Inside the Laboratory" Tours on select days. The audio tour is available in English, Spanish, German and French. Historian led tours are also offered in German and Spanish on select days. Group tours can be arranged in advance. River cruises are offered daily and dining options are available, including waterfront dining.

As a past reviewer wrote about inaccurate prices and then an attitude when questioning the ticket counter about it. This also happened to us. The website states $15 a person and $8 for students with Id. We went today and the ACTUAL price is $20. per person, no such student Id! Crazy! No apology, just attitude....that is the price! We didn't stay. That is poor business practice to advertise one price, get you to come, and then charge another. That is a big difference in cost- especially for a party of 6! They don't deserve the business. A rip-off!

Visited December 2012

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If you are in the Fort Myers area, you should really put this on your list. It's open all year during the day but during the Christmas season, they decorate the property with beautiful Christmas lights (invented by Edison) stay open until 9:00 PM and have evening guided tours which offer a whole different perspective. You can do a self-guided tour for $15 per person, but for $5 more I would recommend the one hour plus guided tour. The guides are very knowledgeable and entertaining. During busy times, you may want to get there well before tour time because they limit the number of people they take on the guided tours. There's also a "behind the scenes" tour in the morning that sounded interesting. Might try that next time.

You will see Edison's winter home and adjacent guest home with original furniture, You can't go in but everything is visible from the outside. Henry Ford was a buddy of Edison's and bought the house next door and you can visit that as well. Some Ford vehicles from the early days are on display. The grounds also contain Edison's lab and other buildings as well as a museum. For plant lovers, there's an amazing collection of tropical plants on the grounds that Edison collected over the years.

Nice way to spend a couple of hours and learn about some fascinating and influential people who had a huge influence on how we live today.

Visited December 2012

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CUBBZ

Ontario

Level 5 Contributor

62 reviews

14 attraction reviews

61 helpful votes

“Volunteers Run it”

Reviewed December 26, 2012

The Banyan Tree is worth seeing and the lab is good, but its horribly expensive for a place that has hundreds of volunteers - someone must be making some high salaries to justify the price - its not Busch Gardens

Visited February 2012

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ibatraveling99

Troy, Michigan

Level 5 Contributor

59 reviews

24 attraction reviews

12 helpful votes

“Wonderful place to visit on a beautiful day...”

Reviewed December 25, 2012

We really loved and was in awe of Mr. Edison and all that he had accomplished. This was his winter home and later also became home to Mr. Ford on an adjoining property. We are from the Detroit area and in comparison to Greenfield Village and Museum this was much smaller scale, and also mostly about the Edisons; with some info about the Ford and Firestone families as well. Beautiful grounds to walk about and we were just shy of a few days to see it all lit up for the holidays. I would include this site on another visit to the area as it is not an all day event and can walk around as you please and/or go on a guided tour.

Visited November 2012

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N0fish

Fort Myers, Florida

Level 5 Contributor

52 reviews

20 attraction reviews

24 helpful votes

“A must see at least once or twice!”

Reviewed December 24, 2012

I have been through this 3 times with family visiting. Just for the history is well worth the money and time. The labortory was great! Nice gift shop and grounds too.

Visited January 2012

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